커머스 플랫폼 자산과 온라인 판매자의 공진화: 카카오커머스 멀티 플랫폼 전략을 중심으로

Purpose: With the development of the online shopping industry, e-commerce platforms adopt different business models. In response to these changes, a multi-platform strategy has arisen in which platform operators deploy multiple platforms to perform different functions. In the process of executing a multi-platform strategy, platform operators face the challenge of deciding whether to operate in the same way as existing e-commerce platforms to strengthen their competences or to differentiate themselves by performing new functions. Such decision-making should be done in conjunction with the adaptive behavior of online sellers, who are users of e-commerce platforms, making it a challenging task. Therefore, this study aims to define the coevolution of e-commerce platforms and online sellers and empirically study the multi-platform strategy and its moderating roles from the perspective of distribution channel management. The strategic factors that explain the coevolution of e-commerce platforms and online sellers are mediated by e-commerce platform equity is affected by enhancing platform competences and differentiation of positioning from existing e-commerce platforms in the current market. And online sellers' perceptions who participate in multi-platforms show a moderating effect on this relationship according to multi-platform positioning. Research design, data, and methodology: A structural equation model was used to empirically investigate the mediating effects of e-commerce platform equity on the coevolution of e-commerce platforms and online sellers in one multi-platform company in Korea. Results: The results showed all paths of the main model are statistically significant. And for the moderating effect, in the case of the multi-platform's positioning being an alignable difference strategy, enhancing platform competences affected the strengthening of e-commerce platform equity more than differentiation does. But the difference was not statistically significant and both paths are significant. On the other hand, in the case of the multi-platform's positioning being a nonalignable difference strategy, only differentiation of positioning significantly affected the strengthening of e-commerce platform equity. Conclusions: Therefore, to build the competitive advantage in the market through the coevolution with online sellers in the multi-platform operation strategy of the e-commerce platform, the e-commerce platforms can choose one of two different strategies. If the e-commerce platform adopts an alignable difference strategy that develops the same functions as existing platforms, enhancing platform competences and differentiation are required. But if the e-commerce platform adopts a nonalignable strategy, it is necessary to develop unique functions and differentiated positioning to strengthen sellers' perception of differentiation to enhance their coevolution.